


exsilium

by Lasgalendil



Series: Salve Regina [1]
Category: Trust (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Neglect, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Does Donatella Finocchiaro know how much I love her, F/M, Folklore, Gen, Genocide, Human Trafficking, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Luca Marinelli Smoking Extended Cinematic Universe, Organized Crime, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Smoking, Superstition, Trauma, Underage Smoking, Underage Substance Use, forced child separation, selective mutism, survival sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:41:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27564706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: “Don’t come back,” Regina begs him. “For the love of God, get out, get away, and don’t come back. Promise me.”
Relationships: Leonardo & Primo Nizzuto, Leonardo/Regina (Trust), Primo Nizzuto & Regina
Series: Salve Regina [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015699
Comments: 3
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

There is a year when Primo doesn’t talk. He is more sullen, more withdrawn than usual, but what teenager isn’t? Leo lights a cigarette. Takes a puff. Crosses the street and sits on the steps next to him. Primo watches him, wary, but he doesn’t run. Primo never seeks him out, but doesn’t outright avoid him, either. So. It’s something. A start, at least.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” Leo wonders.

Shrug.

 _What would your mother think?_ _Where did you sleep last night?_ _Have you eaten yet today?_ Instead he says, “Cigarette?”

Nod.

Leo takes the butt out of his mouth and passes it over. Regina calls him a fool for it, but he makes a conscious effort to engage Primo. Share a cigarette, even if it’s only in an uneasy silence. He’d learned early on there was only so much conversation a man could make when he received grunting in response. So they sit and smoke, passing it back and forth until Leo puts it out against the stone, flicking the butt and filter into the street. He’d pick it up, but he knows Primo scavenges, re-rolls or simply smokes them. Leo has seen him sitting on stairwells, fencerows, sucking at three or four at a time.

His kindness—this small, pathetic act of kindness—does not go unnoticed. “You coddle him,” Salvatore grumbles later. “How will he become a man like this? He must learn to fend for himself.”

“You don’t worry it may be misinterpreted?” Leo asks. _As carelessness. Negligence_. It is as direct as a man in his position can afford to be.

“A man’s house is his own business.” Salvatore decides, as though in his wisdom he has come to an important revelation and not merely stumbled upon the path of least resistance. “He is Vittorio’s son. Let him deal with it.”

“But of course,” Leo agrees. Inwardly he curses, slips Primo a cigarette the next time he sees him. Primo _‘_ fending for himself’ usually involved burglary, breaking windows and locks, stealing from neighbors who couldn’t afford the loss or repair. More than once silverware and dishes had gone missing from Leo’s own home. It was foolish. Reckless. Stupid. But cast out or not, he is still the son of the brother of their Don. There would be few complaints and even fewer consequences were he caught.

…not from _la polizia_ —or rather the local farce that passed for them—at least, no. But Vittorio might just kill him. And that’s the consensus they’ve all come to, haven’t they, with their frowns of disapproval and shaking heads? No one wanted the boy’s blood on their hands so they all stayed silent on the matter, just as they had done and would do with so many other things.

“Those were my grandmother’s grandmother’s,” Regina laments, staring into the empty silverware drawer. “You must talk to him.”

“What am I to say?” Leo frets. “By all accounts someone should take him in.”

“No one will,” Regina tells him.

“I know.”

She puts a hand on her swelling belly. “We can’t.”

Leo knows it all too well. “I know,” he assents, places his hand over hers. But he can’t look her in the eyes. “I know.”

She smooths the hair back from his brow. Cups his face. “You worry for him.”

“He used to sleep over. On the couch cushions. We’d share a bed, sometimes,” Leo explains. “If she came with him. When Vittorio—“

“Yes,” Regina reminds him. “They used to come to our house, too.” Neither he nor Regina had been direct relations, but they had both shared grandparents with her, three or four generations back. Most of the people in their little village did. She sighs again. “I suppose he has as much right to nonna’s spoons as anyone.”

“It’s alright, my love,” Leo promises, kissing her palm. “I’ll buy them back next market day.” Then they’re laughing at the absurdity of it all: paying for their own spoons, some poor peddler stuck in the middle of a racket between the adolescent son and accountant of the same _capobastone_ , shitting himself in terror.

“ _Gesummaria_ , next time you should just give him the pack,” Regina hiccoughs, breathless.

“He wouldn’t accept.” Leo knows, wiping his eyes, no longer laughing but weeping. There is a cruel irony to it, Primo stealing for money for cigarettes when Leo would so freely give them away, a boy struggling to survive while the adults in his life look on, do nothing. But sharing a cigarette is a thing done among friends, among equals. Among men. Anything more would be a gift or a loan, mean a favor owed—or worse, an act of pity. Primo Nizzuto is far too proud for that.

“I know,” Regina holds him. “I know.”


	2. Chapter 2

“This is the last time, _cazzo_ , the last fucking time, you hear me?” Leo has a bullet in his leg, three slugs of amaretto in his belly, more boxer’s fractures than fingers and he’s still in better shape to drive them home. “We could’ve been killed, you _know_ how these Sicilians are, my wife is with _child_ —“

Vittorio has drunk himself asleep in the passenger seat.

Leo swears. Hits the dash. Shouts at him the whole way home from Reggio. It is, admittedly, the stupidest fucking thing he’s ever done, aside from taking this job in the first place. Drive the Don’s brother to the city. Negotiate a cement contract with their cousins across the Strait. A few hours, tops. In. Out. Easy money.

He needs to stop the bleeding. Get the bullet out of his leg. Bandage the wound. But he’ll be damned if he takes Vittorio home. Who knows if Primo’s sleeping over, grabbing the chance to sleep in a bed for once with Vittorio out of the house. Instead he pulls up to Salvatore’s compound, snarls at the guards until they let the car pass.

Leo slams the car door. Limps to the house. Vittorio can sleep off his stupor in the passenger seat, rot for all Leo cares. Maybe he’ll choke on his own vomit and save Leo the trouble of strangling him.

Salvatore is waiting in the doorway. Lets him into the house without a word.

“I’m done,” Leo tells him, heading for the liquor cabinet. “I am done with him.”

Salvatore gives him an appraising look. “Did you know, I had half hoped the Sicilians would take care of him for me. It is a nasty business, dealing with one’s family.”

“Fuck you,” Leo spits, undoing his belt and flies, shucking his trousers and sitting on the couch to pour scotch over the wound and dig the bullet out of his leg. “Next time I am delivering a man to his death, tell me. I won’t put my fucking life on the line to save him!” He’s crossed a line. He’s crossed a line and he knows it, but he’s so angry he doesn’t care.

“Drink it, don’t waste it.” Salvatore scoffs. “I’ll send a car for the doctor.” As if he were a prized racehorse or hound, as if he should be pleased to merit such attention.

“Tell them to hurry,” Leo snarls.

The doctor arrives. Doesn’t so much as blink at the mess of blood. A shot of morphine and a short while later, Leo’s laying pantsless on the kitchen table, clutching the half-empty bottle of scotch, staring up at the ceiling while the father of a boy he went to primary school with roots around in the muscles of his thigh like a pig for truffles. 

After that it’s a bit of a blur. He remembers finishing off the scotch, Salvatore thumping him heartily on the back, remembers getting into a car, and suddenly he’s in his front room, Regina fussing over him, coaxing him out of his pants. Which, fine by him, he’s had a hell of a day, and she’s so beautiful like this in her thin dressing gown, hair up in curlers, seven months pregnant—

Wait. Leo fends her off. “Didn’t the doctor say—“

“We’re not making love, _cazzo_ , you’ve been shot!” she cries.

Oh. Indeed he had. He stares at the bandage in bewilderment. When had that happened?

Regina slaps him. “Are you on heroin?” She demands.

“What am I, a fucking teenager?” Leo asks. “I _know_ what Mommo cuts that stuff with.”

“Your eyes,” Regina insists, one strong hand gripping his chin. He swallows. And— _oh_. That was interesting. “Don’t lie to me, Leonardo.”

“What?” he blinks. Tries to get his mind and body back into the present. The contrast between stern set of her shoulders and the lace of her pajamas peeking from under her dressing gown are not helping matters. At all. “No,” he croaks. “Dr. D’Angeli. Morphine.”

“He called a doctor _and_ a car for you.” Regina asks, stunned.

“Yes, yes.” Leo waves her off.

“Then I suppose you are moving up in the world.”

“ _Salute_ ,” Leo lifts the empty bottle.

“Why are you still holding that,” she chides, and pries it from his fingers.

Leo does not have a satisfactory answer. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he mutters.

“You’re a ridiculous drunk,” Regina tells him, and sits him on the sofa.

“Better than Vittorio.” That was…that was cruel. He shouldn’t have said that. Not to Regina. Not to his wife. Not when—“I love you,” Leo insists, talking over her, taking her hands and kissing them.

“Enough to listen?” She chides him with a wry smile.

“Ah.” Leo apologizes. “How was your day?”

“Uneventful.”

“Well. At least one of ours was,” Leo grumbles. “And the little one?”

“Right on my bladder,” Regina complains. “I can’t sleep more than five minutes without getting up to piss. I used to think my sister was just making it up for the attention—“ And on and on it goes, Leo learning much more about the particulars of pregnancy than he’d ever prefer to: her breasts are sore, she’s lactated through her favorite silk blouse, isn’t it a shame? she’s not sure the smell will come out let alone the stains, did he know she’d actually pissed herself while laughing this morning? “—middle of the marketplace, I had to borrow a dress from Gianna. Gianna! I’ve already washed and pressed it but she’ll still manage to find some fault, you _know_ how the Caleti women are—“

Leo laughs.

“You’re crying.” Regina realizes.

Leo touches his face. He is.

“I could’ve died today,” Leo tells her, the anger and adrenaline gone and the haziness of the morphine starting to wear off. It’s suddenly real, the shock of it hitting him for what feels like the first time. An inch higher or an inch deeper and it would have been an artery. He’d be dead. Bled out like a pig. Never made it home to her, to their unborn baby they’d prayed for for so long, never heard about the absurd intricacies of her every day. “I could’ve died today. Not made it home to you, to either of you—“

“No,” Regina shushes him, and buries his face in her breasts. “No. Do not speak of such things.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Hmm?” Leo blinks. He’d half-fallen asleep again, listening to the radio. Between the music and the morphine it’s difficult to stay alert. Dr. D’Angeli had ordered him on bed rest until the wound had closed, and Regina made for a terrifyingly strict nurse. It’s unfortunate only in that they’re now doubly restricted from certain activities, and between the semi-celibacy and the boredom he’s beginning to go a little mad. Regina’s noticed, her sharp eye and whip-smart wit one of the many reasons he’d fallen in love with her in the first place. That, and there isn’t much he can hide from her sitting around in his underwear all day. She’s being an absolute tease: she has her blouse unbuttoned so low he can see the tops of her swollen breasts and the lace of her brassiere, she’ll put down the dinner tray at the foot of the bed, conveniently drop something, bend from the waist to pick it up. Fuck, he’s not wanted to put his hands on her this badly since they were squirmy teenagers attending Mass, desperate for some time alone. It’s a wonder he makes out any words at all.

“Primo came by,” she repeats.

“Primo?” Leo blinks stupidly, shifting in bed to sit up and promptly bleeding through his bandages. “What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything.”

“No surprise there.”

“Leo—“ she stops. Falls silent.

“What is it, my heart?”

She presses her lips. Chooses her words carefully. “A boy like that is very dangerous.”

“How dangerous can he be if he’s turning up on our doorstep like a stray?” Leo decides. “Did you feed him, at least?”

“He didn’t stay long.”

“Are we missing any silverware?”

“No.”

“Perhaps you should invite him back for dinner, then.”

“I’m serious, Leo,” she says, sitting on the bedside. “You don’t worry people will notice? That they may get the wrong impression.”

“The impression that I am a man who cares what happens to the children of this village?” Leo grumbles. “A shocking accusation, I know.”

She has a hand over her belly. “I worry Primo may get the wrong impression.” Her voice is very, very soft. “That you may want something from him.”

“I want him to be a _child_ ,” Leo insists. “I want his mother not to have been killed, want the men of this village to grow some fucking balls, I want to kill Vittorio for what he’s done to that boy, want to not have to worry where he’s sleeping at night, if he’s eaten, what sort of stupid, reckless shit he’s pulling to keep himself clothed and fed and high!”

Her voice is, if anything, even quieter. “I worry he wants something from you.”

“What, a father-figure? A friend?” Leo asks wearily, leaning back against the headboard. “What he wants is _tobacco_.” He shouldn’t raise his voice. Not at her. She’s not to blame. If he were any less of a coward he’d take it up with Vittorio and Salvatore himself. And that is the only difference between him and the men he hates, why his shame is all the worse: the rest of the village may turn a blind eye, but Leo watches it all, cannot look away, yet still does nothing. 

“Be careful.” Regina repeats.

“Of what?” Leo asks bitterly. “Of Primo? I’m his cigarette supplier. He’s _odd_ , but he’s not stupid. It isn’t in his best interest to hurt me.” Maybe it’s the morphine, maybe it’s his restless frustration, maybe it’s because she can always see through his bravado, cut through to the truth that lies beneath. Leo closes his eyes. “When that boy sees sense and kills everyone in this village, I’ll be the last to die.”

There is a long moment of silence between them.

“That isn’t funny.”

“No.” Leo allows. It had been cruel. A bitter truth. In poor taste—like Primo’s name—but it wasn’t a joke. Primo. What sort of bastard named their son Primo? As if there were the expectation of a Secondo, rather than gratitude for a living child. His father had scratched his testicles when he first heard it, his mother uttering _Dio mio_ , touching her right hand to her left breast. But she never had any other children, and Leo thanks God for that every day. Tells Regina as much.

The look on her face. He has never seen her wear such scorn. He knows she’s intelligent, worldly not in the material sense but the personal: she knows what to say, who to speak to, how to smile and dress and carry herself in such a way everyone important feels they are being listened to, can soften a hurt or mollify wounded pride with a smile, a touch or a nod, convince a man something had been his idea all along. She has lived all her life among dangerous men and proven herself every bit their equal. The truth is he wouldn’t have been a fraction as successful without her by his side—Leo could put a bullet in a man if ordered to, bury him in an unmarked grave then launder a ledger in his tidy hand, but Regina was the one who could console a grieving mother or widow, go to her home, coo over her children, bake her bread in consolation, lie unblinkingly to families who had known her since birth. A lesser woman would look away; Regina saw his every sin and made herself complicit.

“God had nothing to do with it,” she spits. “Every woman in this village scraped together to make sure.” What she’s saying—what she’s _done_ goes against everything he knows about her, about their faith. He has always known she contains multitudes, laughs that she can still surprise him, even now after all these years. But this—?

…No. No, he can’t believe it. _Won’t_ believe it.

But her gaze is steel. She will not waver.

Leo turns away. Can’t even look at her, her pregnant belly. “She could have been killed.”

“She was.” Regina reminds him coldly.

 _By the procedure_ , he means _. The abortions_. There’s not a man, woman, or child in their village that didn’t suspect—didn’t know, deep down—that her husband had killed her. “That was very stupid of you,” he shudders. “If you had been caught—” God, what would Salvatore, what would _Vittorio_ have done to her—?

“We are already beaten and raped,” she snorts in derision. “What more can you men do to us?”

He’d grown up in a home and a community surrounded by men accustomed to taking what they wanted from women when and how they pleased. It was the way of the world: men took, women gave. The most important promise he’d ever made her hadn’t been their first spoken I love you so long ago, or even their vows before the eyes of God. Instead it was the words he’d whispered in earnest on their wedding night: _You can tell me no._ Leo takes her hands. “I am not one of them.”

“No,” Regina agrees, her shoulders set. There is a sharp glint in her eye, the promise she is not done being honest with him today. “No, you are not. Do you know what it is to be grateful for this, to have my neighbors look on in envy?” Leo has no answer for her. His own parents had been dead and buried when he’d realized the nervousness on his own mother’s face growing up was the same restless unease he felt in the presence of the _capobastone_ , doling out both praise and punishment. And Regina? She’d let him put his hands on her, fucked him, married him, even, knowing what wives were for. The amount of trust she had to have—still has—in him. But even after all these years there are things he does not see because he is a man. Because he does not think to ask.

They had tried for so long, lost and grieved so many times. He hates himself for even wondering. He has to know. “Regina—“

“I would have killed to have her child,” Regina swears, furious tears in her eyes. “Do you know what it was like to help her when all I could do was miscarry?”

Leo holds her. Shushes her. Hooks his chin over her shoulder and rubs her back. “For a long time I thought maybe it was punishment,” she sobs. “For what we’ve done. But I’d rather be sterile all my life than watch another child go through that, Leo, I can’t—“

He is a man. He has only two duties: to provide for his family and to protect women and children. Leo knows now he’s failed them both.


	4. Chapter 4

Leo’s lost track of how many days it’s been of fever and forced bed rest when there’s a scraping noise from outside the window. At first he wonders if it’s the wind moving the drain pipe but the sound is far too loud, far too regular, and he has the horrible notion something or someone is climbing up the pipe.

The Sicilians wouldn’t be so careless. A fox or a cat so graceless. And there’s only one person he knows more suited to using windows than doors. Leo sighs. Doesn’t bother going for the shotgun in the wardrobe.

“Good morning, Leo. How are you, Leo. Good to see you, Leo. Could I borrow a cigarette, Leo,” he calls, not looking up from the newspaper. There’s an article detailing the fiasco that went down at the dockyard—he’d left it a mess, prioritizing getting Vittorio’s idiot ass out of there rather than cleaning up after himself—but someone has paid off the right reporters, right politicians to smooth things over. Possibly Salvatore. Probably the Sicilians. “You’ll have to learn to climb quieter. I could hear you coming.”

Primo spills through the window, unimpressed. He’s clearly high, eyes dazed, clumsier than usual. His eyes are bloodshot, nostrils crusted in blood, long hair unkempt. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. _Are you still only snorting, or are you shooting up now?_ Leo doesn’t ask. And the one question he can’t even consider: what does a fourteen year-old do to afford the habit? 

_Are you eating? Are you sleeping? Are you safe?_ Leo wants to say. _I’m worried for you. I’m fucking terrified for you._ But Primo doesn’t take to affection. To coddling. He’s never had the chance to be a child, resents anyone who would treat him like one. “You look like shit,” Leo tells him instead.

Primo ignores him. Steals over to the wardrobe, and fishes through Leo’s pants pockets for his pack of cigarettes. Sharing a cigarette. It was probably the only routine, only structured part of Primo’s day. Leo feels an ache building up in his throat. “Shouldn’t you be in school?” Leo falls back into their well-worn script.

Primo looks him directly in the eye, and puts a cigarette between his lips. It’s a test. A dare. _I’m breaking the rules. What will you do?_

Leo’s not a position to stop him and—more importantly—not his bastard of a father. “You should get a haircut,” Leo sniffs instead of shouting, turning the pages of the paper. “And take a bath.”

Primo slips a cigarette into his pocket. Places another behind his ear.

“Really?” Leo frowns over the top of _il giornale_. “Really. You’d steal from a cripple.” Primo’s sharp eyes narrow, flit over his bandage. “You want to see it?” Of course he does. Every boy is obsessed with the violence and glamor of the ‘ _ndrina_ at this age. When Leo was young it had seemed the only way out of privation and hunger. For Primo it has always been an expectation.

Leo pats the mattress. Primo hops onto the end of the bed with his strange, loping grace, still clutching Leo’s trousers. Looks up at him expectantly. He undoes the dressing. It’s a gory mess, still a gaping wound, nowhere near closing. The meat of his thigh is a mottled purple bruise, both from the bullet itself and the surgeon’s prodding. Primo’s face is, as expected, a mixture of disgust and morbid fascination. “My advice?” Leo winces, it still hurts like a motherfucker. “Don’t get shot.”

Primo wrinkles his nose. Sniffs. Shrugs. Goes back to rifling through Leo’s pockets, stealing any loose change.

“Really,” Leo sighs, rewrapping his bandages. “Really. I’m an invalid and my wife is expecting.”

 _I’m breaking the rules. What will you do?_ Primo stares back, unblinking, cat-like in his defiance.

“Fine,” Leo decides. He couldn’t stop Primo from robbing him blind, injured leg or not. That skinny kid looks half-starved but he’s fast as a fox, slipperier than a fish. Knows the back alleys and roof tops of their little village in a way a younger Leo only could have dreamed. “Fine. But it’s payment, not charity.”

And for one last, sane second, he can’t read that expression, doesn’t understand why Primo looks so damn smug, of all things—then the pieces fall into place: _I worry Primo may get the wrong impression. That you may want something from him. I worry he may want something from you._ There’s something _predatory_ in the way Primo’s watching him, looking up from under his lashes, eyes roving over Leo’s bare skin. And fucking hell, Primo. Leo’s known—God, he’d grown up half queer, how could he not have known?—for such a long time. But Primo’s fourteen. He’s a _child_. He’s scrawny and all angles, pale skin still plump with baby fat. He should be brushing fingers, stealing kisses, petting and giving fumbling hand jobs to his schoolmates, not offering himself up to a man twice his age.

(There are few children in the village, Leo knows. Even fewer after Relocation.)

Leo is abruptly aware of how all this must have looked—his interest and attention, their casual conversations, the cigarettes. Them alone. This room. Leo in his underwear. Fuck, he’d invited Primo up onto the bed without a second thought. He’s Shocked. Disgusted. It wasn’t just that Primo knew what grooming was— _expected it, even_ —no , it was worse than that: Primo had learned the pattern, turned the script back in on itself, performed a practiced, casual seduction. What the hell does Leo say to that?

_You’re too young. You’re just a child._

_I know, I’ve always known, and it’s okay. I won’t tell. You don’t have to be afraid._

_Never again, cazzo! Never again! Do you want to get fucking killed?_

_You deserve so much better. Shouldn’t think you have to pay for kindness._

He wants to say this. All this and more. Leo is generous to a fault, yes, but he’s not a good man. Not a brave man. He ought to say something. Refuse him. Threaten and shout. Shake him. Slap him. But Leo can’t bring himself to raise his voice, raise his hands—

Instead he takes the coward’s way out. Plays the fool. “Regina’s downstairs,” he chokes. “Why don’t you help her with the laundry?”

Primo glowers at him. What is that? Anger? Disappointment? Resentment? Primo has always been odd. Awkward. Unable to interact with others. Enraged and ashamed when he's misread a social situation. He chuffs at Leo like a donkey and scowls, but exits the bedroom door obediently.

“Son of a bitch!” he hears Regina shriek a few seconds later. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” She waddles into view and glares at him from the doorway. “Fuck you.”

“Bed rest,” Leo lifts the newspaper to reveal to his wounded thigh. His hands are shaking. “Doctor’s orders.”

She snorts, climbing onto the bed to straddle his good leg, tries to smother him with a pillow. Leo has never been more grateful for her presence or her laughter: he can hold her, bury his face against her body, pretend the tears streaming down his face too are tears of mirth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relocation  
> https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/italy-mussolini-1950-s-calabrian-italian-children-a7687141.html


End file.
